Newsletter

Not so well-known city services delivered

Thanks for picking up a copy of the paper and turning to my wildly popular guest column. There is usually good reading here depending upon your interests.

It occurred to me, while recently checking on helping an elderly person in the city of Hardeeville, that many people do not realize how much effort is put into providing or attempting to provide services to people in the community who are not listed in our “things to do” as a local government. For example, you expect the local governing agency to mow and generally keep rights of way clean; you look for typical services from the police department and the fire department. You expect the planning and development department to keep order in terms of businesses in the right zoning areas, code enforcement to keep up with land owners that are not keeping up with appearances. Those are services you should expect and get at the right time and the right place.

But what about the services that are not listed on the menu of typical local government’s services and could have harsh consequences for people in the community? For instance, when an individual’s home is in dire need of repair and that person does not know where to begin to find help that is a moral obligation of the elected officials, managers and staff of the community. Sure it’s going to take time and effort, it will pull us away from the more traditional local government efforts, but if it’s not getting done, we need to do it. What about the parent who wants to do the best they can for their children and shows up at City Hall needing guidance and some contacts? Or how about a fledgling program trying to get started to assist in education of our youth, guess where they first go?

There are many other examples of the type of work performed by your local government officials and staff that you do not hear about, unless you are the one in need. By now you know that my guest columns take a little turn toward the end of the column. It’s no different today. I think helping with information, follow up and generally being an ombudsman (I think that’s the first time I used that word) for those in need, but of no specific type of need, is a great opportunity for volunteers. Sort of a feel good work at home job, that is if you didn’t want to come to a makeshift office at your local city or county building. You would also be helping your government staff stay on task with its regular duties and those in need would get better service because that is all you, the volunteer, would have to do. You would have a slight learning curve in finding out which specialized agency could help people with various problems, nothing you cannot handle. You can be like our Hardeeville officials and staff, which is you get a pop quiz every so often and try to help someone with a problem you know little about, but in the end you will feel much better even helping one person. If you are interested in getting this concept off the ground you can find me at the Hardeeville City Hall. It was good seeing you, we’ll talk again next month.